Should VL have Jumping Orkies instead of VR?

I've felt this way since I first found out orkies would be able to jump for the Vasari Rebels. It seems, lore wise, so much more in line with the Loyalists. The problem right now is that jumping orkies is the Rebels 'gimmick', their major defining characteristic. The loyalists already have a 'gimmick', they eat planets. The rebels have no other hugely defining difference, though a lot of their new techs are cool (see shared phase stabilizers). The only way I can see handing jumping starbases to the loyalists is to come up with something quite good for the rebels and nerf the, now two, loyalist defining characteristics. The problem is, what do you give the Rebels? Something that reflects their desire to play nice with other factions would be good, but it's situational and will (depending on what it is of course) disappear in games where you have no allies or when allied victory is off.

In short, lore wise yes, absolutely the loyalists should have jumping SBs. Game wise, probably very hard to balance as the Rebels would need an entirely new (and powerful) defining characteristic and the loyalists would need a nerf to the planet eating or the jumping starbases or even both. It would make an already very good faction OP and would take away the best thing about the Rebels.

That said, if it can be worked out in a reasonable way, I'm all for it.

I suppose you're right about the balance difficulties.

I suppose if Orkies were more ponderous when it comes to phase jumping, I'd be a bit more comfortable thematically, since you could argue that the Loyalists wouldn't bother with something that couldn't keep up with the fleet.

Rebels also have a reason to have jumping star bases. Besides working with the other faction they're also clearly a hit and run faction. What better to hit and run with than a starbase?

Lore wise you can certainly argue the Vasari loyalists would also have a reason to use these. But they are already quite good at the moment, and have more unique stuff than any other faction.

As a Loyalist fan, i would indeed like it, but from gameplay/balance standpoint, i think its ok as it is. In short, JJBuck is right. 

And Loyalists do not really need it. They are most likely to keep all their ships together with the Titan, because they do not have to care about fronts and chokepoints anymore. It would be nice to have Orkulus alongside the fleet, when attacking enemy planet, but they can do without it. Personally, i just left Orky in every gravwell i consumed for resources to protect the phase stabiliser, if there was one.

I've thought this before, but it would completely screw balance (even harder than what the VR having it does).

Definitely, Orky jumping belongs with VL lore-wise. Nerfs should be sprinkled liberally as needed, but it definitely should be moved there.

Do VR get the best diplomatic bonuses in their tech tree? I haven't played them yet. But this is one thing which they should have for sure according to what I have understood of the lore. As said, it's situational and in some games will not be useable at all, but it should still be there.

I am not particularly excited about the following ideas, but still, some food for thought:

Culture-related bonuses are usually the realm of Advent, but when fighting in their own culture. What about fighting better under non-native culture, or negating enemy cultural combat bonuses? Since the VR are supposedly more open to other cultures, they may also get to understand them better and thus use propaganda to lower the enemy morale.

Another thing which is usually Advent are synergistic abilities. Again, it's always between their own kind. VR could have it go the other way, with combat bonuses for heterogeneous fleets race-wise.

To complement this, and make it less situational, there should be a way to spawn and/or take over ships from other races. Perhaps their defining thing would be the ability of converting frigate factories (even capital ship factories?) into one from the other races, but spawning ships under their control? Or having a dark-armada-like thing to get periodic free reinforcements of ships from other races.

They could also/instead have some crazier stuff like better phase lane technology, which I find a little bit more interesting as it relates well to Vasari. Basically the idea is to unlock semi-ultimate-weapon skills on these structures, which can shoot on adjacent gravity wells, and of course would not be as destructive as an ultimate, but tips the odds to Vasari's favor especially on close-to-home attrition battles.

Give the Weapon Jammers an active ability to shoot their effect on an adjacent gravity well. Would also shoot through enemy and friendly phase lane stabilizer-produced phase lanes. Increase the range of the original ability.

Also give the weapon Jammer a weapon booster effect. Perhaps make it a toggle either/or ability like the Advent tradeport/refinery thing. Should also have the 'shoot-to-adjacent-gravity-well' thing.

Improved Jamming (jump time, AM damage) for Phase Lane Inhibitors to give a stronger handicap for invading armies. Increase the range of the original ability.

Give Phase Lane Inhibitors an active ability to reduce jump AM cost+reduce or negate enemy inhibitors and starbase AM damage effects. Would target an adjacent gravity well.

Give Phase Lane Inhibitors one/two passive abilities which enables the target of a phase lane stabilizer to use the same lane to jump at the enemy, and/or to make the gravity well immune to it. 

Give Repair platforms a separate healing ability which would shoot at a friendly ship on an adjacent gravity well at a much higher AM cost. Increase the range of the original ability.

You really don't understand how stupidly OP this would make the VL.  You really don't.  The nerfs you'd be looking at for balance are on the order of doing something, like, say..  Remove all the unique mobility researchables that the Loyalists have.  Oh wait, that would mean that they wouldn't be the mobile race anymore. 

If you need a lore reason to justify the rebels having it, they've built up Orkies over time and now want to start moving them to their rear line to ready for the assault of their pursuers to attempt to create an unbreachable defense.  Likewise, they'd want to send some to allies to assist in their defense.  Also, the VL won't want to keep starbases with them because first off, they're capital focused, not large-object focused.  Orkies are slow things and the VL want to run.  To take the Orkies with them would simply slow them down.  That's why they built the Vorastra.

Also, the V. Rebels want to defend their allies, and therefore the orkies would be used to house other races as well and to get them to safety.

^^This. Also, for further lore purposes you could say something like inthe spirit of cooperation the Vasari Rebels have allowed Advent and TEC engineers to inspect Orkulus starbases, leading to the development of advanced movement capabilities and phase jumping. (The advanced movement bit ties in to my idea for the first level of a 2 level upgrade for orkies for the phase jump ability. It would be a boost to movement speed and turn rate. Shameless plug accomplished).

Edit: By "^^This" I meant Volts comment, though I suppose it still works

Also, love the picture JJbuck2.  Crimson Chin is awesome

Haha thanks, thecrimsonchin8 is my Steam ID and xbl gamertag so I thought it would be appropriate  

Lol Ill keep that in mind and to make sure to add yah.